The Little Ships
Alexis Carew #3
J A Sutherland
Contents
Copyright
Dedication
Epigraph
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Epilogue
A Note from the Author
About the Author
Also by J.A. Sutherland
New London Monetary System
Darkspace
THE LITTLE SHIPS
Alexis Carew #3
by J.A. Sutherland
Copyright 2015 Sutherland. All rights reserved.
Cover Art by Steven J. Catizone
(https://www.facebook.com/StevenJamesCatizone)
Planetary / Solar Lagrangian Point graphic is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/
Newly commissioned lieutenant Alexis Carew is appointed into HMS Shrewsbury, a 74-gun ship of the line in New London’s space navy. She expects Shrewsbury will be sent into action in the war against Hanover; instead she finds that she and her new ship are pivotal in a Foreign Office plot to bring the star systems of the French Republic into the war and end the threat of Hanover forever.
Created with Vellum
For Aryn,
Made you wait for the third book — I suppose that’s torture enough.
Whatever influence I had on you is the best thing I’ve accomplished in life, sweetheart, and I could not be prouder of you.
Oh … and call your grandmother!
And to the men and ships of The Little Ships of Dunkirk, 26 May to 4 June 1940.
And gentlemen in England now abed
Shall think themselves accursed they were not here,
And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
That fought with us upon Saint Crispin’s day.
Henry V, Act 4, Scene 3
William Shakespeare
Chapter 1
“Fire!”
Alexis Carew, sixth lieutenant aboard HMS Shrewsbury, stepped back from the gunport quickly and added her own voice.
“Fire!” she yelled.
Her vacsuit’s radio crackled with static as the order was passed on by the two midshipmen with her on Shrewsbury’s upper gundeck. The crews of the fourteen guns that lined the ship’s port side stepped back and the gun captains slammed their hands down on the buttons that fired the guns. The crystalline tubes of the guns flashed and, even before the afterimage had faded from her eyes, the crews were in motion to reload the guns with fresh shot.
Alexis ducked her head back to the port and watched as the shot from her guns joined the rest of Shrewsbury’s broadside on its way to the enemy ship. Fourteen more from the guns of the main gundeck below them, along with seven from the quarterdeck guns and two from the forecastle, all flashing across the space between Shrewsbury and the other ship in the odd way things behaved in darkspace. Even light was affected by the presence of so much dark energy and dark matter, with the bolts of the lasers becoming condensed and foreshortened in their path between the ships.
The bolts of light seemed to slow and condense as they moved, until they struck the other ship and the shot splashed against its hull. The light from the bolts illuminating the gases and droplets of vaporized thermoplastic from the other ship’s hull.
“Faster, lads!” Alexis yelled to her reloading crews. “Captain’ll want two broadsides in three minutes, or he’ll know the reason why!”
The carefully choreographed dance of reloading the guns went on.
Before the guns’ tubes had even darkened, the gun captains threw open the breeches to expose the gleaming casings of the gallenium-cased shot. The other two men of each crew knelt and ran their eyes over the gun tubes, checking for any obvious damage from the last firing. A cracked or hazed tube could burst, sending the next bolt in deadly splinters of energy throughout their own gundeck.
The gun captains pulled the spent shot canisters from the breeches and flung them to the far side of the gundeck, then selected new shot from the racks that ran down the middle of the deck. They ran practiced eyes and fingers over the shot to see that the casing was well-sealed. It was early in the action and the gallenium-mesh nets covering each gunport kept out most of the radiation effects of darkspace, but that wouldn’t last. More and more would creep in the longer the action went on. Enemy shot would damage the nets, or even hole the hull, allowing in even more. That radiation affected all electronics, save those protected by enough gallenium, and if the shot casing wasn’t sealed well enough the gun wouldn’t fire.
Alexis smiled with a certain pride. She loved the guns. The way her voice and breathing echoed inside the helmet of her vacsuit, the hot, heavy work of hauling shot canisters from the racks to the guns, she even loved the risk.
She knew it would take only one shot, even from the smaller frigate Shrewsbury now faced, to end her. Though the hull was thick, it could be breached, and the gunports only had the thin nettings, meant to keep out the darkspace radiation and not as any sort of protection for the crews.
But still she never seemed to feel so alive as in action, pitting her lads against those on another ship.
Her crews were working well. The runners were collecting the spent shot canisters for return to the well-protected magazine below, where the capacitors would be quickly recharged. Her two midshipmen, Walborn and Blackmer, were assisting the crews where needed, or at least had the sense to step back out of the men’s way where not.
The guns’ tubes had been checked and the facings inside the breeches, where the shot’s lasing tubes would meet the tubes of the guns, were even now being wiped clean.
Alexis was dimly aware of the other ship firing, but none of their shot penetrated Shrewsbury’s hull. She spared a moment’s worry for the spacers working the ship’s masts, then returned to her more immediate concerns.
One by one, the gun captains shoved new cannisters into the guns, slammed home the breech, and raised their arms to signal their readiness. Some of them took a moment to adjust their aim, having their crews roll the heavy gun carriages into a new position or crank the wheel t
o change its elevation. The work had to be done by hand because no electrical motors or controls would work once the darkspace radiation began entering the ship.
“Ready forward!” Walborn yelled, his arm going up in concert with his last gun captain’s.
That’s twice he’s ready first, Alexis thought. There’ll be a shilling or two changing hands if Blackmer’s crews don’t show better.
Walborn was an inveterate gambler, though for small stakes, and had roped Blackmer into his bets. The younger boy had likely lost a month’s pay since joining Shrewsbury. It was a practice Alexis discouraged, but couldn’t stop. Not because of Blackmer’s losses, but because they were betting on the actions of their crews.
As though they were nothing more than horses in a race.
The last gun captain’s arm went up, Blackmer’s following quickly.
“Aft ready!” Blackmer’s voice sounded over the radio.
“Upper ready!” Alexis called, her own arm going up. The quarterdeck would hear her report, but if the radios became inoperable due to radiation creeping inboard there was a spacer at the aft hatch to relay the signal as well.
“Fire!” came the order from the quarterdeck.
Again shot flowed across the space separating the two ships and struck the enemy.
Alexis eyed the damage to the other ship. There were several holes in the frigate’s hull where Shrewsbury’s shot had penetrated. Three masts projected outward from the ship’s bow, not quite equidistant, as the Hanoverese preferred to rake their fore and mizzen masts a few degrees closer to the mainmast that projected straight up from the bow.
Metal mesh sails on the main and mizzen masts gleamed with the azure glow of the charged particles that allowed them to harness the dark energy that flowed through darkspace like winds.
Most of the foremast, though, was missing, shot through and cut away early in the action.
The Hanoverese frigate was much smaller than Shrewsbury, a 74-gun third rate, and no frigate had any business tangling with a ship of the line. It was just the Hanoverese captain’s bad luck that had allowed the engagement.
The frigate had been trailing the convoy of merchantmen Shrewsbury was escorting for some time, always staying far enough astern or to windward so that Shrewsbury, a much larger and slower ship, couldn’t bring it to action.
Then it had tried sneaking in on the convoy of merchantmen Shrewsbury was escorting under cover of a darkspace storm, hoping to make off with a prize or two. But the storm had cleared with the two ships surprisingly close together, putting paid to the frigate’s plans and leaving it no choice but to engage Shrewsbury at least long enough to escape. Though that hope for escape hadn’t survived the first broadside, when Shrewsbury’s fire had shot through the other ship’s foremast and left its rigging a deplorable mess.
The action had really been decided then, but the frigate’s captain had refused to strike his colors and surrender.
Another broadside or two and he’ll have no choice but to strike, Alexis judged.
The frigate’s hull was pocked with holes where Shrewsbury’s guns had eaten away at it. Four of its gunports were merged into a solid line of open space, where the hull between them had been burned away by Shrewsbury’s guns. The frigate fired and Alexis noted that at least three of the other ship’s guns were no longer firing, though they were still attempting to fire in broadside.
Soon now, and Captain Euell will have a prize to join the convoy.
“Load, lads, load!” she yelled. “They’re all arse-up and begging for it!”
She straightened from the port just as the other ship’s broadside arrived. Perhaps the frigate’s guncrews had adjusted their aim, or perhaps just bad luck, but the shot found Shrewsbury’s upper gundeck for the first time.
One bolt flashed through the number two gun’s port, narrowly missing a spacer examining the gun’s tubes. The man froze for a moment, as though not believing what had just flashed between his face and the tube, then resumed his examination as though nothing had happened.
The other shot, though, struck through the number nine port aft. There was a flash of vaporizing metal as it came through the netting that covered the port, then it struck Midshipman Blackmer full in the chest.
The energy of the heavy laser burned a hole the size of Alexis’ hand through the boy’s vacsuit, body, and out the other side to finally strike and dissipate against the darkly colored starboard bulkhead.
Alexis rushed to Blackmer’s side, but saw that there was no point. The vacsuits could seal against something small that pierced nothing vital, but this had killed Blackmer outright. She grasped his body by the arms and dragged him to the starboard side of the gundeck where he would be out of the way of the gun crews.
“Ready forward!” Walborn’s voice echoed in her helmet.
Alexis watched the aft guncrews, waiting until the last gun captain flung his hand up.
“Upper ready!” she yelled.
“Fire!”
Chapter 2
“Wine, sir?”
“Thank you, Littler.” Alexis nodded her thanks as Captain Euell’s steward filled her glass. Hers was the last, she being the junior officer at the captain’s table. The men at the table quieted as Littler stepped back with the wine bottle and looked expectantly at Captain Euell.
“Gentlemen,” he said, raising his glass. “Fine work and a successful action.”
“Fine work and a successful action!” they all chorused, Alexis included. She raised her glass and took a sip.
The captain’s day cabin seemed almost spacious with just the seven of them. Captain Euell, his steward, Alexis, and four of Shrewsbury’s other lieutenants were the only occupants.
Lieutenant Slawson, the second lieutenant, was off with the prize crew getting the Hanoverese frigate in hand. The others, Lieutenants Barr, Brookhouse, Hollingshead, and Nesbit, in order of their seniority, had been invited to dine with Captain Euell in celebration of taking the Hanoverese frigate.
“A shame about young Blackmer, Carew,” Euell said. “He had the makings of a fine officer.”
Alexis nodded. “He did, sir,” she said, her throat a bit tight.
“Bad luck, that,” Lieutenant Barr, the first lieutenant, added. “Not another man lost but him.”
The others murmured agreement and Alexis raised her glass as she knew was expected.
“Absent friends,” she said.
The others raised their glasses in turn and there was a moment’s silence.
“A fine lad and he’ll be missed,” Captain Euell said.
And that will be the last said of him, Alexis thought, a bit bitterly.
She understood the need; with the war on so many men fell in bloody actions that it was best not to think on them too long. Not from callousness, but because there were still the living to care for.
The other midshipmen in the berth would have their own toasts to Blackmer tonight. The best of his friends in the berth would go through his things and select a memento or two before his kit was sealed and struck down into the hold to be sent back to his family. His body would be reduced to ash in the fusion plant and those ashes packed away in his kit as well. It was a sad package to think of sending home.
“We’ll cover a bit of business before dinner, I think,” Euell said, “as Carew will be dining elsewhere again.”
“Thank you, sir,” Alexis said. “I’m sorry about that.”
Euell waved her apology aside, but Alexis could tell he didn’t find the situation aboard Shrewsbury at all to his liking.
No more than I do, she thought.
“What do you suppose your dinner will be tonight, Carew?” Lieutenant Brookhouse asked, grinning.
“Yes,” Lieutenant Nesbit said. “I can’t wait to hear your description of the next dish that Eades fellow feeds you.”
“I shudder at the very thought, sirs,” Alexis told them. “He’s not told me what’s next and I daren’t ask. But after that last one … well, I suppose tha
t’s the reason we call the French ‘Frogs’, after all.”
Brookhouse laughed and gestured at her glass. “Fortify yourself well, is my suggestion.”
Alexis took a healthy swallow. “There are some things that shouldn’t be faced sober,” she agreed.
The others laughed and Alexis took another drink of wine to hide a sudden emotion. How different the laughter aboard Shrewsbury was from that on her previous ship, the ill-fated Hermione, with her tyrannical Captain Neals and a midshipmen’s berth full of toadying bullies.
“I’ll have Littler send a plate to the wardroom for you,” Euell said. “In case you can still stomach good, planet-raised beef after whatever Mister Eades places in front of you.”
“Thank you, sir,” Alexis said. “That will be welcome, no matter what Mister Eades’ cook has prepared for us. It seems the French are incapable of serving a simple bit of any meat without they cover it in some sort of … goop.”
The others laughed again, but the laughter turned to amused looks at Alexis as her tablet pinged. She grasped it through her jumpsuit, frowning because she was certain she’d turned it off before coming into the captain’s cabin. No officer wanted a meeting with the captain interrupted by a midshipman asking questions.
“I’m sorry, sir,” Alexis said, pulling her tablet out. “I’m sure I turned it —” She broke off and clenched her jaw at the sight of the message. “Mister Eades requests my presence, sir. I’m certain I turned the tablet’s alerts off, though. I’ve no idea how he manages it, but he seems to regard our communications systems as his personal playground.”
Euell pursed his lips. “And Shrewsbury as his personal transport, come to that.” He sighed. “I can’t fault you for not controlling the man when that’s beyond me as well. Tell him you’ll be along shortly.”
“Aye, sir.”
“If I didn’t have orders to offer him and that Courtemanche fellow ‘every accommodation’, I’d have his accommodations in the bloody brig.”
The Little Ships (Alexis Carew Book 3) Page 1